


The Demon Chicken Pazuzu

by tangentti



Category: The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 00:11:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17735312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tangentti/pseuds/tangentti
Summary: Dr. Richard Strand produces a podcast episode in his own style.  "The body of scientific literature pretty thoroughly rules out psychic chickens.  I cannot believe I have to say this.”





	The Demon Chicken Pazuzu

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Unpretty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unpretty/gifts).



[A brief musical clip from “I am a Scientist”, by the Dandy Warhols plays]

(A strikingly resonant male voice): This is Doctor Richard Strand, welcoming you to a special edition of The Black Tapes. Alex was kind enough to allow me to direct an episode, to provide a counterpoint to the thrilling narrative she finds in the relatively mundane process of debunking psychic phenomena.

(Accented voice) “It’s the chicken, Doctor Strand. You must come quickly, it is prophesying your death!” (Beep).

(A polished young woman): Alex: “A psychic chicken?”

Strand: “Technically, a chicken touched by the power of a god. Birds have been used in oracular fashion since the dawn of time, augury itself was a practice of the ancient Romans in divining the future by means of the flight of birds.”

Alex: “Chickens don’t fly very well.”

Strand: “The chicken in question follows the Iranian tradition of picking cards with poetry written on them. They tend to be rather pleasant verses, discussing wine, family, romantic love. A harmless pastime, although the usual practice is to use a songbird.”

Alex: “Harmless?”

Strand: “Like any other so-called traditional fortunetelling, it can have too much read into it.”

Alex: “Such as prophesying your death?”

Strand: “Even so. This particular chicken, Pazuzu, is part of an experiment we’re running as part of our university outreach. The Strand Institute supports grants to student research as part of the nonprofit status.”

Alex: “The chicken is named Pazuzu, as in the demon from the Exorcist? Don’t you think that’s a little worrisome?”

Strand: “As in ancient mesopotamia, king of the spirits of the wind, an evil used to warn off other evils, protecting humans against misfortune. It’s an apotropaic name to protect the chicken from demonic possession.”

Alex: “Good to know. I’m sure our listeners would love to meet a holy chicken. Aren’t you worried about the prophecy of your death?”

Strand: “Eventually, all humans die. It’s a pretty safe guess that someday I will be amongst them. I’m more worried about the experiment - this sort of report is not in the written protocol.”

——-  
(A fast-talking young woman: Brittany): “I’m sorry, Dr. Strand, but insisted we contact you.”

Strand: “It’s fine, we’ll write up the deviation and remove the days data.”

Alex: “Hi Brittany, I’m Alex Regan from Northwest Stories, and I’m shadowing Dr. Strand as part of the podcast we’re doing. Could you explain a little about this experiment you are running with Dr. Strand - for our listeners?” (there is perhaps a tinge of jealousy in Alex’s voice)

Brittany: “Sure. Richard’s terrific for helping us. (beep) was convinced that his chicken, Pazuzu, had the gift of prophesy and contacted Dr. Strand about proving this. I’m in the psychology department, and needed an intern project outside the university. The idea is that we’re doing a rigorous statistical study of questions and answers chosen, using careful blinding techniques to eliminate bias.”

Strand: (fondly) “I only provided a little guidance. The traditional so-called psychic animal gives the impression of answering questions due to sensitivity to body language. The most famous case was ‘Clever Hans’ a horse that apparently could answer arithmetic questions. The real mechanism was exposed by noting that ‘Hans’ was answering the question asked to his handler, and not the question asked to the horse. Brittany took the idea and made a very tight, well structured experiment to eliminate this effect.”

Alex: “Tight and well-structured does come to mind looking at Brittany. What does that mean?”

Brittany: “Everyone hears a different question. The owner, the chicken, the one recording the answer, and the answer is interpreted by different judges, only one of which has the real question, but doesn’t know it. Pazuzu chooses a card with an answer, which consists of poetry fragments and needs interpretation. We count up the answers - if they fit all the judges equally, we know the answers are vague and contain no information, so the apparent match with the question is only in the mind of the judges. If they match the owner’s question, we know it’s responding to the question he hears. The chicken is psychic if the answers are to the question asked the chicken, and can’t fit any other interpretation.”

Alex: “And is the chicken psychic?”

Brittany: “We don’t know - the blinding hasn’t been broken yet, so we can’t run the numbers.”

[A brief musical clip: “Show me how this thing works” by Cracker]

—-  
Strand: “This is Doctor Richard Strand, and as the Strand Institute is a nonprofit, I can’t tell you about the socks I wear, the mattress I sleep on, or the podcasts I subscribe to. I can, however, recommend the R statistical language, a freely available piece of software suitable for analyzing all your numerical data obtained from rigorously designed experiments on supernatural phenomena.”  
Brittany: “It’s both free as in speech and free as in beer. Affordable by undergraduates and graduates alike. Check your local user group for help: I’m a member of R-ladies Seattle.”  
Alex: “I’m not really a numbers person, but they have cool hex stickers - I put the one with cats on it on my laptop.”  
——-

Alex: “But the chicken is prophesying Dr. Strand’s death?”

Brittany: “It’s…complicated.”

(Accented Voice): “I am so happy to meet you, Ms. Regan. I listen to your podcast, and it makes me feel that I know Dr. Strand better now, the tragedies of his life that makes him a worthy adversary.”

Alex: “Adversary?”

(AV): “Maybe a better word is tester. I believe, but I want to know for sure, Dr. Strand doesn’t believe, but also wants to know for sure. We have much more in common than separates us.”

Alex: “That’s a very nice way to put it. How did you find out that your chicken, Pazuzu, had the gift of prophesy.”

(AV): “My wife and I, on our first meeting, we went to the market and paid for a fortune, whether our meeting was fated to be. The little bird hopped, dragged a card as large as itself from the stack, and brought it to her hand. It said, “The wine is ready now, why would you keep your heart closed?” I translate badly, but the words of the poet Hafez, who spoke with angels, were written on the card, and I knew we would be together.”

(AV): “But life is also too short, and she passed away recently. I found, when looking through the house for her funeral, she had kept that card all these years, and I remembered the joy at knowing we would be together.” (voice breaks a moment) “And I remembered the words of the poet, and thought that I could bring answers to others. I bought a deck of poems, and found Pazuzu answering my questions. I listen to your podcast, Ms. Regan, and reached out to Dr. Strand. If I am merely sentimental, well, my wife and I were still happy, and Hafez is still great.”

Dr Strand: “I’m sorry for your loss.”

(AV): “Yes, you are an honest man who cares deeply. That is why I worry about you - I listen to the podcast and fear for your life. I broke the rules, I went and whispered to Pazuzu, ‘how is my friend?’ And the card said ‘God wishes to summon him to practice his boxing’ - I’m sure there’s a better translation, but the meaning is that the Richard is such a strong fighter that God wishes to call him to fight in Heaven. Ever since, all day, the cards have been only the final lines, of the poems, calling out death.”

——  
Alex: “We’re back at the Strand Institute. Richard, doesn’t it worry you?”

Dr. Strand: “I’m impressed that the podcast has touched people so much. The poet Hafez, wrote love songs, but also in the mystic style, wrote of death being the final ecstasy after the pleasures of life have ended. There’s a familiar phenomenon of availability - once you learn a new word, you see it everywhere in written material. Similarly, once the idea of death enters your head, you see it everywhere. I am not worried that an allegedly holy chicken picks verses with allusions to death from a poet who wrote about death, merely because the context is myself.”

Alex: “Still, it would worry me.”

Dr. Strand: “That’s why you don’t sleep well.”

——-  
Brittany: (on the phone) “It’s ruined! I can’t publish.”

Alex: “What do you mean?”

Brittany: “Why are you answering the phone at the Strand Institute?”

Alex: “Podcasting agreement. I’ll fetch Dr. Strand.”

Dr Strand: “This is Richard Strand, you’re on speaker.”

Brittany: “Pazuzu, it looks like a fox got him. Just blood and feathers. I can’t believe it. We didn’t even finish phase one, and now my project is as dead as the bird.”

Alex: “Brittany, are you saying the chicken prophesied it’s own death?”

Dr Strand: “No, Alex, of course not. And that’s not important. Brittany, please tell that I’m sorry Pazuzu died before we could get answers. We’ll work out how to finish the project later.”

Brittany: “You’re right. I’ve just been so focused on doing the project right to make you happy…”

Dr Strand: (cutting her off) “Yes, rigorous investigation is the way we find out truth. It’s sad when a promising line of investigation is ended, but there will be more opportunities in the future.”

——

Alex: “So that’s the end of it. We don’t know if the chicken, Pazuzu, was psychic, and if it was psychic, if it was predicting your death or its own.”

Dr. Strand: “That’s overstating the ambiguity. The body of scientific literature pretty thoroughly rules out psychic chickens. I cannot believe I have to say this.”

Alex: “But the chicken did die.”

Dr. Strand: “This may sound harsh, but it didn’t die to rigorous scientific standards.”

Alex: “I did some research on the poet Hafez.”

Dr. Strand: “And?”

Alex: “The “Love Songs of Hafez” were a composition of the composer Karol Syzmanowski inspired by the ghazals of Hafez, translated into German. Karol Syzmanowski was a Polish composer, who was inspired by Alexander Scriabin, who wanted to bring about the end of the world by the Mysterium composition, which we’ve discussed many times on the podcast. Do you think this ties into the other Black Tapes?”

Dr. Strand: “You’re inferring that the chicken, Pazuzu, is a minor cog in the plan to bring about armageddon by music, and was, what, murdered to silence it? That seems rather extreme. Remember what I said about seeing connections everywhere to new facts? Mystic poetry in translation and composers inspired by Scriabin - neither of those is particularly rare.”

[A brief musical clip from “Experiment IV” by Kate Bush plays]

Dr. Strand: “The owner of Pazuzu wished to remain anonymous, although he graciously allowed his voice to be recorded. This is an example of a more typical investigation rather than the somewhat sensational framing that is often seen throughout a season. Thank you for listening to this special episode of the Black Tapes.”

**Author's Note:**

> From a prompt by unpretty: http://unpretty.tumblr.com/post/168242848978/the-one-thing-i-wanted-from-the-black-tapes-that-i ... it wrote itself, including the tie-in to the conspiracy.


End file.
